


Resignation

by spacefucker



Series: 30 Day Challenge (Marvel) [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Clint Barton Needs a Hug, M/M, Pre-Relationship, good friend natasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 22:04:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8074336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacefucker/pseuds/spacefucker
Summary: Clint wants to quit but doesn't think he can. Then he realizes too late that Phil's wormed his way into his heart.





	

Clint has been trying to quit for what feels like ages. It’s a whole lot of maybe’s and he has enough resignation papers to wallpaper his apartment.

It’s not easy. He should have known himself, anyway. When there’s something to fight for he can’t help but notch an arrow because that’s who he is. He’s the guy who will probably die with that bow and arrow in hand because for all the smack he talks he’s still a hero. Or at least he tries to be. It doesn’t matter if it’s saving a dog or saving a small child from a hailstorm of bullets, Clint feels himself moving before he even means to.

Phil has told him more times than he can count that quitting isn’t something people like them can just _do._ Life is too full of chance to be predicted. Especially in their line of work. Clint’s tried to fight it. He’s done his best to ignore the news or not follow every cry of help he hears into the dark. But there’s always that pull and there’s always that nagging fear that he’s not sure what he’d do if he just let it go.

Because Clint has been there before. He’s been too small to do anything to help. There’s always been cries echoing around in his skull, taking up residence in his brain and never leaving. So he sleeps with the tv and the police radio on. He relishes in as much noise as he can. Phil has gotten onto him for wearing his aids to bed but Clint’s so worried that the one time he won’t something will happen and that’s just more blood on his hands.

It was because of this all that Clint had been so wary of Phil. Personal relationships were so rare in his previous lines of work, let alone romantic ones. Besides, what happened when his past finally caught up with him? How could he handle saving Phil if he could hardly save himself? There was no guarantee that Clint could give anyone in which they could be close to him and safe. The only person he’d let in had been Natasha because she knew what it was like to have so much blood on your hands that you could paint the faces of all your victims.

So it comes as a surprise when Clint realizes that Phil’s already there. The man has already set up shop in his heart and Clint’s scrambling to figure out when it happened.

And he wants it so bad. Phil is everything Clint wanted and didn’t know he needed. He’s soothing, his voice calming Clint down in that way that lullabies do to babies and each time Clint hears it he has to run away and regroup. Because life is about being on high-alert. His life is about constant watch. He curses himself then, while he’s shaking Phil’s words loose, for being so careless.

It doesn’t take long before Phil confronts him, though. He’s ever the man of action. Clint knows the type, he knows Phil. They’re the forward type of people. Ones that what you see is what you get. The kind of people that know what they want and that’s the end of it. Clint envies that kind of boldness.

So he’s approached, not cornered, and asked at point-blank. He wants Clint and makes every second of the conversation worse by listing all the ways he thinks Clint’s great. Each example has him cringing, his body reacting physically like he’s being attacked instead of praised. Phil looks confused and concerned, reaching out to give a reassuring hand in the next thing Clint knows is that he’s home and its quiet again.

He avoids Phil then, skirting him in the halls and only speaking with him to report on missions. Each time Clint pulls away he realizes more and more how much space Phil occupied in his life.

Now he feels like an ass because it’s his fault. He’s lead Phil on without even knowing it. So on one windy afternoon while sitting on the rooftop of his apartment building with a phone in his hand, he texts Phil. It’s the best he can do.

_I don’t deserve this._

This is not melodrama. This is cold-hard truths. One he wish Phil had picked up on earlier so that Clint didn’t have to say it himself. Because even though he thought it all the time, admitting it still stung. It was like no matter what he tried to do in his life to balance the scales nothing ever worked. It was a lot like trying to dig a hole in concrete with a plastic spoon. All of the resistance with none of the progress.

Natasha shows up then almost like she knew and they sit on that rooftop with a large pizza between them and a liter of soda each. Their legs dangling, swinging back and forth while the city plays out below them. She doesn’t talk about Phil. Dependably, she just talks about life. Goes on about the cat that keeps following her that she’s finally decided to feed. She asks Clint about vets and if she should get a collar.

It’s just all so pleasantly mundane. In the best of ways. And he’s feeling lighter by the minute.

When she gets ready to leave she gives him a kiss to the cheek and lets him know that she’s here for him. It almost makes him cry. She says she knows what that feeling is like and if she always indulged it then she and Clint wouldn’t even be friends. Just before she leaves, standing on the ledge ready to jump to the next building, she tells Clint that if anything, people don’t deserve him.

She makes the jump and Clint turns back and sits down, pulling his phone out to check for messages, and feels his heart kick up when Phil’s name flashes on the screen.

_You deserve the world and more._


End file.
